


Hearth

by YoGrossDude



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Feelings, Hypothermia, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2019-12-26 08:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18279437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoGrossDude/pseuds/YoGrossDude
Summary: A venture into the Cut turns dangerous, forcing Erend and Aloy into close quarters.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to the hypothermia fic that is 100% inaccurate in terms of appropriate hypothermia treatment and instead an excuse for sexual tension and cuddling
> 
> frozen wilds on ultra hard is a level of hell

The Cut is the worst damn place in the world he’s ever been, bar none. The chill here bites bone-deep, every step a slog through thick drifts of wet snow. He can barely see a foot out in front of him now, the wild fury of a blizzard stinging his face. But Erend presses on, half-stumbling, following the blurry beacon of Aloy’s hair as it whips around in the wind, bright red against the endless grey expanse in front of them.

“Your friend should move,” Erend spits, shivering miserably, the wind stealing his words as soon as they leave his mouth. “You tell her you’re friends with the Sun King? Avad can set her up with a nice little place in Meridian. Or even one of those old noble estates. Or, hell, _anywhere_ else where people coming to visit don't have to worry about freezing to death.”

She turns her head to cast an amused glance in his direction, trudging ever forward, apparently unbothered by the weather in the quilted Banuk furs she’s wearing.

“I thought you said you've been cold before,” she says mildly.

He grumbles under his breath, huddling against the freezing lash of the gusting wind.

He told her that one back when “cold” meant the brisk, brief snowfalls in the Nora Sacred lands, where a thick shirt under Vanguard steel was enough to get him by with little more than a shiver. Now he’s under three layers and it still feels like he’s being hit with Snapmaw spit every time the wind hits him, a cold so raw it burns.

The best part? He’s not even sure why he’s here.

Well, maybe that’s not entirely true.

About a week back, Marad caught him with a slight, knowing smile as Erend passed him by on his way out of the palace after he finished making the usual reports to Avad. It made him oddly uneasy, causing an uncomfortable prickling low in his guts that made him hastily modify patrols for the next few days.

Three days later, Aloy appeared at the gates Meridian.

He just so happened to be there to greet her, armed with a stupid grin and a bad line and a sharp ache in his chest he still really doesn't want to think about. She was...brighter than she had been in a while, even had a corner of her mouth pulled into half-smile when she met his eyes, the kind that gave his stomach a slow, hot pull.

They waded through the early morning crowds together, heading towards the market, where she planned to make her typical rounds for supplies. But before she even made her first stop - a few of the more questionable metal hawkers quickly finding somewhere else to be as soon as they caught sight of him looming over her shoulder - Aloy had a question for him.

She asked if he wanted to meet a friend of hers.

Since “friend” was a word he’d heard Aloy use maybe three times since he’d known her, it was fair to say his interest was piqued by the invitation. And by the bright new spark behind Aloy’s eyes that lit up when she mentioned this friend, which burned him more than a little.

He’s already spent a good portion of this trip kicking himself over that, but it hasn't seemed to help any.

In any case, though she parted with the details about as eagerly as a delver would a prize, he was able to confirm at least a few things. Her friend didn’t belong to any tribe, oddly enough, and wasn't a Nora Outcast, like Aloy had been. She lived in the Cut, Aloy explained, but wouldn't be able to meet them outside of her home, so a fair bit of travel on their parts was required to get there. And, most importantly, though Aloy didn’t say it and Erend didn’t dare voice it unless he felt like getting peppered with arrows for some reason, Aloy was _excited_ about the possibility of the two of them meeting, which had to mean something.

That’s half of the reason he decided to go, anyway.

The other half is Erend’s sneaking suspicion this friend is somehow related to the _thing_ that drags lead-heavy on Aloy ever since he saw her that night before the battle, the same thing that still lingers behind her eyes, hangs on the grim corners of her mouth. It's changed her, pulled her away from the rest of the world. She even talks to people differently now, her words careful and clipped and quiet, deliberately dimming the strength of her presence, like she doesn't want anyone to notice her anymore.

Aloy doesn’t do anything without a good reason - steel to his bones, he’s damn sure of that - even if she’s apparently decided she can’t tell anyone what that reason is. And he’s well aware she can handle herself, better than anyone else he’s ever met in his life. Still, he’d be lying if he said it didn’t bother him: no one would ever call Aloy _chatty_ , but she’s sure as hell never been _shy_. It’s unsettling to hear her pick warily through conversations like she's waiting for some kind of ambush, to see her about to say something and then look away, to catch her staring off into the distance at nothing at all, her eyes listless and cold and so, so tired.

Whatever's pulling at her, it didn’t shadow her so much when she talked about this new friend, and even with his smarting mote of stupid jealousy, Erend can’t be anything other than grateful for that.

So he’s mostly followed Aloy into the Cut on the thin hope that she - or her friend, even - might divulge what’s really been going on, which is about as likely as him becoming the fifteenth Sun King with the entire Vanguard giving up drinking all in the same day. Someone smarter probably would've given pause at an invitation to a deathtrap in the middle of nowhere, crawling with furious machines and brooding people, with little other than a vague destination and a few scant details. But hey, if there’s anyone he’d travel to the very edge of the world for without having any real clue as to why, it’s Aloy, without question.

He trusts her.

_Trust._ Yeah, that’s what it is.

They keep marching forward, one foot in front of the other, the two of them slowly pushing through the storm of snow. Aloy's new plan is to stop at some place called Keener's Rock to hole up, hopefully finding a break in the blizzard to continue on to her friend later. She's clearly not happy about the delay and Erend's already wincing at the idea of any Banuk “hospitality.” But at this point, even a barebones tent and a handful of tough, terrible jerky sound just as good as a summer night in the Palace of the Sun.

He tried asking questions earlier in the trip, all of them extremely obvious attempts to tease out more information - he’s never been subtle in his life, and he wasn't about to start then. All it got him were hesitant one-word responses, if she even bothered to answer at all. When that came to a slow, awkward end, he went for inane conversation, which Aloy had even less of a tolerance for than he expected. So now he's settled on complaining, which seems to amuse her at least, and that’s great, because he doesn’t see that well drying up any time -

Aloy halts abruptly mid-step, crouching, and whips an arm out to her side; he makes a small, undignified wheeze when her elbow catches him square in the chest. She turns to face him for a brief instant, a finger over her lips, motioning him down with her other hand. Erend crouches beside her, trying to peer through the thick flurries, and makes out a vague shape moving in the distance.

“What is that?” he whispers.

It looks almost like a Sawtooth from where they’re standing, but the head of it is different, the build of it lean instead of bulky. Aloy stares at it intensely, her narrowed eyes boring into the dim outline of the machine against the blizzard, and then her entire body tenses.

“Run,” she says.

He turns to her, eyebrows raised. Aloy isn’t looking at him, still fixated on the machine. The shape of it is steadily becoming larger, more defined, but it's still a considerable distance away from the two of them.

“Run?” he echoes, brows knitting in confusion, “But it -”

Aloy shoves him, hard. He skids on a slippery patch of snow, yelping in surprise. He just barely regains his balance to prevent himself from falling over at the last second, blinking stupidly at Aloy. She rolls a fair distance away from him, her eyes wide with alarm when she stands again.

A sound somewhere between an explosion and a roar sends his ears ringing, the cacophony of something impossibly heavy moving impossibly fast; a blur of black metal and fire races across his vision for an instant. The air around him suddenly becomes unbearably hot, and then it ignites like a spark on black powder, leaving him too stunned to do anything other than watch in horror as a wall of flame appears between him and Aloy.

The wild swing in temperature does something strange to the next breath he draws in: dry, superheated air sears his throat, stabs at the inside of his lungs like smoke. He has time to cough only once before an ear-splitting grinding noise cuts through the howl of the wind, the sound of metal claws gouging through snow and rock, digging deep into the earth. He whips his head around to face its source, hammer drawn, adrenaline surging through him, molten metal in his veins.

He’s never seen a machine like this before: a long snout and large, triangular ears sitting on top of its head. One of its foreclaws is dug deep into the snow and dirt; probably what it used to pivot all the way around to loom over him. Embers dribble from its mouth as it slavers at him, it eyes red and flashing, and it rears back, lifting a massive metal claw wreathed in flames -

He ducks and leaps back - barely in time. The flash of fire that passes near him is a thousand times hotter than a forge-heart; he throws up an arm to shield his face to try and prevent his skin from blistering. The second it fades, he sprints to its side and strikes out at the ankle of its other leg with his hammer as hard as he can, the metal denting under the force of the blow. A trio of arrows whistles through the air, pinning into the machine square in the face. A shower of sparks from the impacts cascade to the ground, hissing when they hit the snow. The machine cries out, trying to paw the arrows off with the leg he just injured to no avail, its foot hanging limply at an odd angle. Erend risks taking his eyes off it just long enough so he can confirm Aloy’s position: about fifteen feet behind him, to his right, circling around to flank the machine, her bow raised, her eyes narrowed and focused.

Her arrows fly again just as the machine hunkers down, its head low between its massive shoulders. Aloy’s arrows hum loudly when they hit it this time - the familiar telltale racket of tearblast arrows - the force of them ripping a component of the machine right off, but it’s a second too late: four flat discs fly out of the strange protrusion on its back before it’s torn away. The discs blink rapidly as they’re tossed into the air, settling on the snow in front of him.

Aloy yells for him to run, and this time, he doesn’t hesitate.

The discs explode behind him, rattling Erend’s teeth inside his skull even as he sprints as fast as he can and dives away, landing hard, mashing his face into slushy dirt.

He scrambles back to his feet, no time for anything other than a quick hand over his face to try and get at least some of the snow out of his beard. His chin stings from the impact but he’s otherwise no worse for wear: the small craters the exploding discs left behind are a clear sign it could have been much, much worse. Squinting against the wind and snow, he can just barely make out the shape of Aloy in front of him now, arrow after arrow leaving her bow in rapid succession, each one perfectly on target, splashes of chillwater freezing against its metal skin, frost crusting over its joints. The machine is slowing, he realizes, even though he doubts anything could really kill the white-hot fire that must churn inside of it, its next fearsome charge at her noticeably sluggish - though he still holds his breath and his stomach plummets as he watches her dodge out of the way.

Erend rushes forward, closes the distance enough to take another swing at the foot he’s already damaged, brittle now from Aloy’s arrows. This time, metal shatters under the force of his blow, a raw kind of joy surging through him as he whacks at it again, this time hard enough to smash it off entirely, jagged remnants of its ankle sparking, torn wires whipping in the wind. The machine howls - two arrows catch it in the throat, killing the sound abruptly. The red light in its eyes dims and darkens, its massive body swaying for a moment before crashing into the ground, the last of its embers spilling from its mouth to die in the snow.

Erend slings his hammer onto his back, his chest heaving and lungs burning. But he still manages to beam up at Aloy through the little clouds of his breath as she runs to meet him, an arrow still trained on the fallen machine. Her shoulders reluctantly lose their tension as she lowers her bow, apparently satisfied the thing is finally dead. She heaves a sigh when she looks at him, and the warm relief of her smile when she meets his eyes sends every inch of him buzzing.

It seems like the perfect time to ruin the moment, so he cracks a grin and opens his mouth and then there’s a noise like a thunderclap, and the ground shifts under his boots. He looks down at a long, jagged crack in the earth - ice, he realizes, he’s standing on ice - and then he falls, straight down.

The icy shock of the water hits him with all the fury and weight of a Behemoth - he instantly sucks in a reflexive inhale and winds up with a lungful of liquid ice. He manages to surface, briefly, sputtering and choking, blindly grasping for anything to hold onto, but his fingers slip against any surface he tries to grab. A jolt of terror claws through him as he feels his boots fill with water, Vanguard steel and thick leather and fur-lined layers suddenly, impossibly heavy. The water latches onto him, dragging him down, down, down.

Aloy yells his name just as his head goes under.

Erend can see the barely see the dim light beyond the surface of the water above as he struggles, not even really swimming - more of a frenzied attempt to try and somehow grab ahold of the water itself to climb back up. It doesn’t work, of course, the cold instantly sapping even this new frantic, desperate strength that’s welled up from somewhere he’s never tapped before, his motions quickly starting to slow.

He’s going to die, he thinks, and the only thing he can muster to feel is dull surprise.

Something plunges under the water, a pointed end and shimmering blue, just long enough for him to reach. His fingertips at first barely brush against it, missing it entirely in a fresh new surge of panic; he swipes for it again and this time takes hold with both hands, gripping it white-knuckle tight. He kicks with everything he has left to help pull him back up, sucking in a desperate breath when his head finally breaks above the water. Aloy is looking down at him, her eyes wide and terrified, clutching at the other end of her spear, clearly straining to get him as far as she has.

She gets him close enough to latch onto his right shoulder and _pull_ , crying out with effort. His scrabbling hands finally gain purchase on the ice nearest to her, gives him just enough leverage on the ice so he can climb about halfway out. Between the two of them, he finally breaks free of the clinging hold of the water, and Erend drags himself over the ice, away from the pit. He doesn’t get far, collapsing heavily onto his stomach, utterly exhausted, trying to breathe. The adrenaline and all its surging strength have faded, like red-hot steel quenched in chillwater, his thoughts slowing, his body already sore.

Aloy is hovering over him, frantic, quickly rolling him onto his back, yelling things he can barely hear over the dull roar of his sluggish pulse, let alone understand. Her hands are in constant, blurring motion, on his chest, on his face, his flesh too numb to feel them. He tries for a reassuring smile - for some reason that agitates her all the more, her face contorting with raw fear. She’s trying to tell him something, her voice breaking, as the world starts to dim. It’s probably something important. He struggles to cling to the blurry remnants of consciousness to try and make out what it is, to keep his eyes on her, only her. But try as he might, he can’t hear her, can’t lift his hand to reach for her, and the darkness swirling on the edge of his vision presses in to swallow him whole.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> speak to me not of reflector fires, I am but a humble trash peddler, au where carbon monoxide poisoning doesn't exist
> 
> also my hand slipped and this is three chapters now forgive me

Erend wakes up staring at the high, rocky ceiling of a cave, his teeth chattering together so hard it feels like they’re going to split.

“What happened?” His voice is too loud and slurred - nothing he's not used to, to be fair - but there’s no sour remnants of booze on his tongue this time and _why is it so cold?_ Every inch of him is shaking wildly, like his bones are trying to escape from his skin.

“You _fell in_ ,” Aloy hisses, pure venom, “Into a _frozen_ _lake._ In a _blizzard._ ”

Wincing, he rolls his head to look at her, and winds up regretting that instantly. The whole world pitches hard, worse than even his angriest hangovers, starts spinning wildly until he’s nearly sick - before it comes to a sudden, startling stop. Blinking to clear the dark spots from his eyes, Erend eventually manages to focus on the slightly blurry form of Aloy. She’s crouched nearby, in the center of the cave, hastily feeding what looks like a new fire, the machine core at its heart still sparking beneath the tinder. With a speed that makes him start between shivers, she snaps her head up, pinning him with a look that could bore through steel. But there's something off about it, something underneath her fury, something he can't quite place.

“Oh,” he says.

She scoffs and turns her attention back towards the fire, poking at it incessantly, muttering under her breath. Erend shifts under what feels like a mountain of their pair of thick sleeping furs and what looks like every scrap of cloth Aloy could find. Turning himself slightly, he spots half his armor in a messy pile to his left. Sluggishly, bits of memories roll across his mind: the new machine, metal claws and a trail of fire, sinking underneath frigid water, the terror on her face. He tries and immediately fails to bolt upright, struck sharp with worry.

“You okay?” he asks. His voice is hoarse.

Aloy blinks up at him, the fire in front of her starting to take hold, and she barks out a harsh, incredulous laugh. “Am I - ? _I’m_ not the one who fell into a frozen lake.”

He frowns, because she didn’t really answer the question. “But are you okay?”

She sighs, works at the fire a bit more, and then, apparently satisfied, stands up to her full height. With the dim, flickering light of the flames and the scant bit of light that comes from somewhere far overhead, he realizes she’s not wearing the blue-dyed Banuk clothes anymore: she’s not wearing much of _anything_ anymore, just her breastband and smallclothes and her necklaces. And before he can process _that_ any further, she strides over to crouch down beside him, drawing away the makeshift pile of furs and cloth he's stuck under.

“I’m fine,” she tells him softly, and then she starts pulling off his shirt. 

It leaves him so stunned he barely even moves when she yanks the first one over his head, his second layer quickly following to join it in the pile with most of his armor. It's not until she reaches his last shirt, the one lined with now wet and reeking fur, leaving him naked from the waist up, does he finally realize she's not going to _stop_.

“Hey,” he says weakly and when she starts tugging on his pants, he immediately reaches out to stop her hands, his voice rapidly building in volume and alarm, “Whoa whoa _whoa hey wait_ \-  ”

A frustrated sigh bursts out of her, but Aloy lets him go, backing away, to his immense relief. “They’re soaked through, Erend,” she says through her teeth, “And you're going to freeze to death if you keep them on.”

He puts his shaking hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. I got it.” He pauses, looking up at her helplessly. “But... _all_ of them?”

There’s not an ounce of pity in her eyes. “All of them.”

He sighs. “Fine.” Maybe he can still get through this with at least some of his pride intact. “Just...turn around?”

Aloy makes a face. “Can you get them off on your own?”

“Yeah.” It’s a lie, and not even a good one; it’ll be nothing less than a miracle if he can get anything off at all. But steel to his bones, Erend is absolutely sure he'd rather die than endure the monstrously embarrassing ordeal of her peeling all of his clothes off him right now.

Aloy narrows her eyes. Then she takes exactly three steps away and turns around.

Being wet means all his clothes stick to his skin, making removing them with his numb and trembling fingers like trying to thread a needle with a hammer, but he sets his jaw and puts every remaining ounce of strength and focus he has left into getting it done.

“What kind of stuff does your friend like?” he asks through his the clatter of his teeth, trying to distract Aloy from realizing this is taking much longer than it should, “I’ll pick something up once we get out of here to apolo - ”

“No.” Aloy’s head jerks up, towards her shoulder. For a terrifying second, he thinks she’s going to turn around; Erend freezes as much as his violent shivering allows. But she doesn’t, looking troubled as she stares at the cave floor. “We need to get you to a healer as soon as possible. You took in a lot of water. We’ll turn around at first light, if the blizzard dies down by then.”

Despite the fact he’s so cold he can’t even feel his face and muscles he didn’t even know he had are sore and screaming, his stomach drops uneasily all the same. Disappointment doesn’t even begin to cover what haunts her eyes now, and she brushes her fingers against the bone charm on her necklace, staring out at nothing.

It gives him enough time to finish, at least. He tosses the rest of the wet fabric over by where his armor is and instantly starts burying himself back under the pile of furs and cloth.

“You should go underneath Banuk furs first,” Aloy tells him, glancing over her shoulder for a half-second before dutifully turning away again, “The ones I was wearing. That should keep you the warmest.”

It'll barely even cover half of him, he's sure, but he bundles as much of himself in it as he can anyway. It’s at least slightly better than wearing waterlogged clothes, and he starts pulling the pile back on top of himself. He still feels like a block of ice roughly hewn into his own shape, the half of him that isn't freezing uncomfortably and frighteningly numb. The shivers that still threaten to rend him apart are no less intense than when he first woke up, but they're coming less frequently now, though he suspects that might not be a good thing.

He stares up at the dim light coming from somewhere above him and wonders if he's going to die.

“Thanks for getting me out, by the way,” he says, trying not to think about the way it felt to have his lungs shriek as they filled with freezing water or the way the skin burned and stuck on the ice, “Y’know, I’m not even sure how you did it, because between that feast Avad put on for the anniversary of the Liberation and all that steel, I’m probably - ”

“Erend.” Aloy is standing over him now, so he shuts up. For an instant, her eyes are soft and worried, but it disappears so quickly he thinks he must've imagined it.

"Go on your side,” she says, her voice quiet. He obeys without a word, slowly continuing to roll the idea of his own mortality around in his still-sluggish mind.

Then Aloy is suddenly _there,_ with him under every layer, her body pressed up against his without an inch between them.

She flinches away at first, hissing from the chill of his skin. Slowly, carefully, she settles herself against his back, soft as spring rain and hot as a forge in a Carja summer, a hand flitting hesitantly over his arm before finally settling below his elbow, her fingers light and unsure against his ribs.

He makes a noise that sounds a lot like the last, dying squeak of a Longleg.

Aloy gives an irritated _tsk_. “It's the only way to warm you up more,” she says grumpily, somehow - mercifully - misinterpreting his reaction entirely, “I'll move soon.”

“No,” he blurts, like an _idiot_ , his heart hammering against his chest and his face hot, struggling to get a hold on his mouth before he can say anything else and failing miserably, “It's not bad, I mean.”

He can feel her shift slightly against him, sending up a new burst of sparks flaring low in his belly. They meld together with a different kind of heat: a sunbeam in a cool room, a blanket in the night, comfortable and cozy, hazy and -

“Don’t sleep,” Aloy says sharply, with a thump on his back for emphasis that instantly shocks him completely alert. “You’re going to need to drink some water soon.”

“Okay, won't sleep. Got it.” She's so _warm_ and close he can barely think. He swallows. “Any other rules I need to know?”

“Don't die, either.”

He laughs. Sort of. It almost sounds like one, anyway. “It’s that bad, huh?”

Aloy doesn't say anything, which is more telling than any reply. For a long while, there’s only the sound of the wind howling outside, the crackle of the flames, and, if he listens hard enough, the quiet, steady rhythm of Aloy’s heart.

At least there’s worse places to die.

Her voice cuts through the silence like a knife in the night. “Does it snow in the Claim?” she asks.

One of his eyebrows goes up even though she can’t see it. Aloy attempting smalltalk is jarring enough to make him want to roll over and check to see if it’s still really her.

“Sometimes.” He can feel her breath against his neck and has to forcibly drag his thoughts back into line so he can give her an actual answer. “Rains a lot more than it snows, though. In the winter it just comes down as ice most of the time.”

She hums thoughtfully, a noise he feels against his back more than he hears it.

Another question follows. He’s starting to get suspicious, now. “Can you really taste metal in the air? The Oseram, I mean.”

 _That’s_ a line that was old since well before he marched on Meridian.

“Who told you that one?” he asks, and finds he already knew the answer before Aloy even says it.

“Petra Forgewoman. When I was in Freeheap.”

He snorts. “I’m sure she did.”

He can hear the frown in her voice when she speaks next. “What does _that_ mean?”

_Oops._

“Uh. That’s - it’s, uh - back in the Claim, you say that to someone you want to…” He grasps for an appropriate word, acutely aware of her skin on his, “... _impress._ Not sure why she thought it would work on a Nora.” He pauses. “Does it work on Nora?”

“It did sound pretty impressive,” she replies. Something in her voice makes his brows knit together, but he'll be twice-burned if he lets this slip by.

“Well, everybody knows if you stay away from the Claim too long you lose the talent,” he says, shooting for breezy and likely getting nowhere close, “Me, I could probably get - “ He tries to think of whatever outlandish number Petra would come up with and doubles it, “Six or so.”

“Six, huh?” Now he can recognize it, of course, because it's too late and he's already made an ass out of himself: she's _amused._  Great.

“ _Maybe_ six,” he mumbles.

She laughs at that, fragile and quiet but real, and the warmth that radiates throughout him this time has nothing to do with her pressed up against his back.

They've talked more now than they have the entire trek here, and that feels better than it should. Her voice comes easy now, almost eager, without any of the hesitation or that anxious second guessing that’s stolen so much of her words lately. It’s good, so good, to hear her talk again like she used to, bold as brass and undaunted by anyone or anything.

And then, with a sensation similar to the realization he was about to fall into the lake, he remembers what she told him earlier.

It’s just to keep him awake, this idle chatter, like the way you'd keep pressure on a wound. Just something that needs to be done, same reason she’s laying next to him right now, and here he is, turning it all into something it isn’t like a crazed tinker with the broken corpses of five different machines. This isn’t some deep conversation, one of those moments he can’t get out of his head where she shows a shining sliver of herself to him and no one else. She’s just trying to keep his gums flapping for now so he doesn’t fall asleep and die. That’s all.

_Idiot._

Well, if she wants him to talk, he’ll talk. He’s good at that.

“Is she pretty?” he blurts.

Aloy's confusion is palpable. “Who are you talking about?”

He's being incredibly stupid right now, and yet he couldn't stop himself even if he tried. “Your friend,” he clarifies, even though he shouldn't have to.

When she answers, she sounds equal parts baffled and irritated. “What does that have to do with anything?”

What, indeed.

Erend sinks between his shoulders and decides to change tactics.

“What did you want us to talk about?” he asks, “Me and your friend. You said that's what you wanted us to do, before we left Meridian.” _You didn’t look at me when you said it, but you said it all the same._

Aloy moves away from him, a little. It might as well have been a mile.

“I don't know,” she says finally, sounding uncomfortable, “There’s a lot…I wasn't sure…”

She trails off. There's a moment when she draws in a breath and he thinks she's going to speak again, but she sighs instead, heavy as a Thunderjaw heart. Then she's abruptly gone, her sudden absence just as devastating as any wound, a burst of frigid air briefly engulfing him as she lifts the blankets to leave. Somehow, the cold outside their little nest of furs and body heat is so much worse now that he finally almost feels alive again, and when he shivers - the first one in a long while - he's so sore he grits his teeth.

Aloy returns to sit next to him, holding a waterskin that must've been filled with melted snow. He's able enough now to sit up and drink from it. The taste of the water is stale and somehow both too hot and too cold at the same time, but he downs it greedily anyway, trying not to spill it all over himself as Aloy watches him, her stare curious and pensive.

“Cyan,” she says, and he almost chokes on his next mouthful of water.

“Huh?” It's a nonsense word, utterly meaningless, but she said it with such seriousness it's got to be important, so he stumbles through trying to say it himself. “What's a 'Cyan?’”

“Her name is Cyan.” A corner of her mouth quirks into a wry smile. “And she's a _friend_ , Erend.”

Maybe he'd be better off on the bottom of that lake.

Dark as it is now, there's definitely more than enough light to see the burning flush he knows is on his face, though she's kind enough to ignore both that and the inane babbling that falls out of his mouth reassuring her that he knew that, _really_.

He lays back down and buries himself under the covers, half an attempt get himself warm again, half to hide his face as fast as possible. Aloy slips in not long after, resting against his back with an ease that fills him with an ache so sweet and sharp it nearly kills him.

“You can sleep now,” she reminds him, and all at once he's utterly _exhausted_. He almost falls asleep right then and there, but Aloy says something that cuts him to the bone.

“I never should've asked you to come with me.”

Her voice is small but she sounds angry, and an awful, churning ball of guilt starts forming in his gut. He should’ve been more careful when she spotted the machine, should’ve been faster, should’ve -

“You almost died because I dragged you here,” she murmurs, and he blinks, awed, because she’s somehow mad at _herself_ , “Just because I wanted someone else to…” She bites off the rest of her own words with a frustrated sigh. He holds his breath and waits, wishes and wishes for her to finish that thought, but there’s only the roar of the wind outside, the crackle of dying embers.

“Aloy.” He wishes he could turn over, look her in the eye, but it’s a losing battle right now just trying to stay awake. “I _want_ to be here.”

Stupid thing to say. _Yeah, I_ want _to be about to freeze to death in a cave during a blizzard after I almost drowned._  And it’s not what he really wants to say anyway: it’s not at all about being _here_.

But Erend can’t manage to say anything else; his eyelids are too heavy to keep open, and he’s already half-asleep. He thinks she murmurs something in the quiet, another question, this one soft and unsure. Whatever she says, though, he can't make it out, the words fading away as he sinks into the dark.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S OVER!

Erend rouses slowly the next morning, groggy and unusually sore, and has a hell of time trying to remember where he's been. It’s difficult to find that particularly troubling, however, given how comfortable he is right now: he's lying on his back, buried under a thick pile of warm furs, too lazy to open his eyes just yet, and far too cozy to make any move to wake whoever's curled up beside him.

She's nestled in the place where his neck meets his shoulder like she belongs there, an arm draped protectively over his chest. He can feel his face half-buried in the soft expanse of her hair; when he breathes in, he catches the scent of pine needles and rain. It's _nice_ , vaguely familiar in a way that tugs at the back of his mind, like he’s forgotten something important.

It can't be _that_ important.

He has an arm wrapped around her in return, his hand resting on her waist, the bump of her hip under his palm. Absently, he brushes his fingers against the skin there, feels her shift against him and snuggle even closer, and the grin that spreads across his face is as shameless as it is wide.

Who _is_ this? She's awfully affectionate, which means he must've made quite the impression, but it's strange, because the only person he can remember spending any time with lately is…

_...is --_

Erend snaps his eyes open. Right there to greet him is an unmistakable swath of rust red hair.

He just barely clamps down on the urge to bolt, despite everything inside him is screaming to do so immediately, consequences be damned. His hand does leap off Aloy's hip like she's burned him, and he curls it into an awkward fist at her side, his mind reeling, trying to figure out what the hell he's going to do. Holding his breath, he tries to gingerly untangle himself from her half-embrace, get a little more space between them, at least - and is entirely unsuccessful. She doesn’t budge at all.

At least she’s not strangling him. Yet.

Honestly, the fact she hasn’t instantly snapped awake at the slightest change in the air is shocking; he always thought Aloy slept with one eye open, if she even slept at all. But as far as he can tell, Erend doubts she'd wake up even if a Thunderjaw decided to squeeze in beside them, her head resting peacefully on his shoulder, her breathing soft and even, ruffling the hair on his chest.

Erend swallows, hard.

He can’t hear the blizzard raging outside anymore, a small silver lining. It must be past dawn, judging from the way the light filters in through the cave entrance and the small opening on the ceiling. There’s no way he would’ve woken up before then if left to his own devices, especially after what happened to him yesterday, but he can’t imagine Aloy wasting a minute of good daylight. Maybe she was awake long after he passed out, stayed up to make sure he was still breathing for most of the night before she closed her own eyes.

His hand beside her twitches.

She’s so close it's impossible not to look at her, though he makes an effort not to study the serene expression on her face, not to notice the old, faint outline of a scar on her forehead, not to count the freckles he hasn't seen before. He briefly entertains the idea of trying to go back to sleep, but decides against it just as quick. That feels…unsavory, too close to lying. No, much better to grit his teeth and face it head on, like pulling out an arrowhead.

Which he should start getting used to, since he's probably going to be pulling out a lot of arrowheads by the time she's done with him.

Erend bites the inside of his mouth and gathers every scrap of courage he can find, and then he gives Aloy a slight, gentle nudge.

“Hey,” he murmurs, “I didn’t die.”

Aloy finally stirs, her eyelashes fluttering. He watches as she pulls herself into a long, languid stretch he wouldn’t be able to drag his eyes away from even if he wanted to.

“Good,” she yawns, propping herself up on her elbows, her eyes still hazy when they lock onto his, and he watches her lips ease into a small, drowsy smile, one of many things about this trip he doubts he's going to forget any time soon.

“Sleep well?” His voice is teasing, flimsy cover for the soft heat that swells up in his chest. She huffs a quiet laugh - and then, with a violent start, realizes she's practically on top of him.

Aloy rears up and back, her entire face instantly erupting into a brilliant shade of red, but he can’t help but notice she still sticks close, even though there’s plenty of room.

“I didn’t mean to,” she snarls, nowhere near apologetic, and he’s grinning, wide and stupid, which only enrages her further, “I was keeping you _alive_ , not - not -”

“I wasn’t complaining,” he replies, and so much for keeping him alive, because the sputtering, indignant noise she makes means she’s going to kill him.

“I should’ve left you in the lake.” Aloy is hovering over him, the fury radiating off of her like heat from a forge, and he is _absolutely_ going to die now, because he’s laughing, “Waved to you as you sank to the bottom and then told one of the weraks to dredge you out next spring.”

“Really?” he says, still chucking, “You would've left me there til next spring?”

“Without ever looking back.” But there’s no real venom in her words, and her eyes are glittering with amusement. She moves tinglingly close, juts out her chin. “I’d go straight to Meridian and tell the Vanguard they’re on their own.”

“Oh yeah?” This is rapidly gaining a worrying edge towards something _else_ , and Erend finds he doesn’t mind in the slightest.

“Yeah,” she continues, undaunted, the smirk playing about her lips as intriguing as it is contagious, “And if Avad ever asked me where you went, I’d - ”

It just sort of happens, as natural and easy as drawing his next breath. A lock of Aloy’s hair slips loose from her normally impeccable braids, and, before he even realizes what he’s doing, Erend gently pushes it back behind her ear.

The world stops the instant he touches her skin.

Her hand snaps up to catch his wrist, but her grip is loose, and she looks more surprised than anything else. For a long moment, she simply holds him there, and before he can stammer out any kind of apology, she turns her face slightly towards his palm, her lips nearly brushing against it when she tries to speak.

“I’d…”

Her voice falters, but her breath still gusts across his hand, soft and warm and slightly uneven, and a heavy shiver ripples right down his spine.

He needs to say something.

“Uh,” Erend says, helpfully, and it comes out wrong, too low. And even that doesn’t break what’s happening now, thrumming and sparking between them like a live wire, his eyes flitting from her lips to her eyes to the flush spreading over her cheeks and back again.

Aloy leans fully against his hand then, sending a sudden jolt leaping down his arm, coiling just below his navel. Her fingers move up his wrist, light and unsure, and when she looks at him the next breath she draws is shaking.

Every inch of him burns.

It would be easy, so easy, to close the little gap between them, to find out if her lips are as soft as he thinks they are, what the warm weight of her would feel like in his arms. Everything slows, quiets into something immediate and real: he’s hyperaware of the way Aloy angles her face towards him, the feel of her skin when he brushes the pad of his thumb against her cheek, the slight part of her lips. There's none of the sharp intensity he's come to expect from her stare - instead, it's replaced with something soft and delicate and painfully uncertain. A deep, wounding ache winds itself about his chest, squeezes so tight it's hard to breathe, and all he wants to do is draw her close and hold her and kiss her til she's breathless.

But he doesn't.

He wants to - _Fire and Spit_ , so much more than he's ever wanted anything. But it's still there, clinging to her like a heavy shadow - the thing she can’t tell him, won’t tell him, the thing she thinks she has to do alone.

She’s got...more important things to do. And he's not going to get in her way.

Erend pulls his hand back, snaps the tension between them with all the grace and ceremony of breaking a dry twig. Aloy releases him from her grasp with surprised reluctance, staring at him with a mix of both relief and confusion.

It seems like the perfect time to ruin the moment, especially because he desperately needs to forget just how badly tossing that moment aside bled him worse than any wound, so he cracks a grin and opens his mouth and says, “Tell Avad what?”

She blinks at him. The corners of her mouth curl up, slowly, briefly, and this time she really backs away, far enough to leave him cold.

“I’d tell him I never saw you,” she replies archly, but he catches a glimpse of that same soft uncertainty lingering there when she looks at him.

He grins even wider, pushes through the brutal, stupid pain that’s welling up inside him, all teeth and charm. “Well, too bad. Looks like you’re still stuck with me.”

“Lucky me,” she says, with an impressive eye roll, but she’s smiling, and he laughs, a real one, one that sounds right. She turns away from him, moving to stand with a heavy sigh he tries not to think about.

“I’ll get us some food,” she says. He watches her rummage through her pack, fishing out the Nora outfit she wore the day he first met her, averts his eyes once she starts pulling it on. He finds some spot on the wall of the cave to look at, shifting a little under the furs.

“Y’know,” he says, knowing full well this isn’t going to work and that he has to try anyway, “I really don’t feel _that_ bad. I could probably - “

“No.”

Strange how knowing she was going to say it makes it somehow worse. He risks a glance and is surprised when her eyes instantly meet his, her expression troubled but firm.

“I don’t want to risk it,” she says, and his face must do something because she quickly adds, “It’s fine, Erend.”

It isn’t. Nothing about this is. But there’s nothing he can do about it, so he nods, shrugs like it doesn’t bother him, and tries to hammer the whole broken mess into a joke so he can force himself to laugh about it later.

“Can’t say I’m not looking forward to getting out of here sooner rather than later,” he drawls as Aloy finishes tying her boots, “I’m never complaining about another Carja summer ever again.”

“Really?” Aloy asks dryly, arching an eyebrow. She’s kneeling by the fire again, lights it with a quick spark to the machine heart inside, adds a splash of blaze to get it really burning.

“Well, maybe not as _much_.”

She smirks at that one, slinging her bow and quiver over her back. “Your clothes should be dry before I get back,” she tells him, pointing to where she’s laid them out in front of the fire, “We’ll try for Song’s Edge, but you need to tell me if you don’t think you can make it.”

“I can make it,” he says, with a confidence and a grin he is not at all feeling, and, because he can’t forget the way she leaned into his palm, he adds, “Sure it’s okay we’re missing Cyan?”

Aloy presses her lips together before she answers, standing back up to her full height. “No," she says, "she won’t mind.”

 _I wasn’t asking about her._ The words burn on his tongue, but he keeps his mouth shut. Something tells him she knows.

It’d been luck, mostly, that he got to accompany her this time - Avad was loathe to deny Aloy anything, especially after all she’d done, but Avad had hesitated even when Aloy went with him to ask for the leave. He’d let Erend go despite the ever-growing litany of problems that were rapidly becoming real concerns: an influx of refugees from the Shadow Carja, an increase in bandit attacks, so many parts of Meridian that still needed to be rebuilt. The Vanguard are needed, now more than ever, and he’s gotta kick everyone’s ass into shape now, including his own. There won’t be another week he can travel to the Cut again any time soon.

There won’t be time he can spend with her any time soon.

He’s shaken out of his thoughts by the sounds of movement; she’s leaving, he realizes, and blurts out her name before he can stop himself.

“Aloy?”

It catches her mid-step out of the threshold of the cave, but she halts, turning back towards him, a little bemused, the sunlight in her hair, and, for an aching, gorgeous moment, Erend has no idea what to say.

He eventually settles on, “You know I trust you, right?”

Like going with her into the Cut didn’t prove that, or listening to her reveal the truth of what happened to Ersa was some kind of fluke. Like it somehow matters to her at all, what he thinks. But it’s what he wants her to hear, to remember, when she thinks about that burden, whatever it is, because it's true. He trusts her more than anyone else in the world.

Aloy blinks at him. And then she says, “I know,” low and quiet, her smile soft and small but there, so it wasn’t the wrong thing to say.

She lingers at the mouth of the cave for a while, like she wants to say something back, but she catches herself, nods at him instead, and then she’s gone.

He stares stupidly at the empty mouth of the cave like a Grazer-licker, and then he sighs and lies back and squeezes his eyes shut.

_Trust._

Yeah, that’s what it is.


End file.
